IV.1.5. THE ROYAL IMPRINT BLOSSOMS

MENU: 4.1.5. The royal imprint blossoms

A CITY THAT RENDERS HOMAGE TO KINGS  

The arch at Saint-Denis gate honors Louis XIV (built in 1674)

Look at the outline

of streets and places*

*Italics are due to their specific meaning in France.

• Straight streets and monarchy

• Napoleon's tomb: Straight streets that lead to a sepulcher. Whose?

• Royal places multiply
  

• At the last royal place, change begins

 *     *     *

Next,

Straight streets and monarchy

STRAIGHT STREETS AND MONARCHY

AT MONARCHY'S HEIGHT, ALL STRAIGHT STREETS LEAD TO SYMBOLS OF ROYALTY

(TOWARD 1600-1750)  

They are:  

• Those that lead to royal places, at the center of which is an equestrian statue of the reigning king (place Dauphine excepted because of its particular terrain and meaning). 

The model of place des Vosges

• The arch at Saint-Martin gate

Zoom (please scroll down)

A straight street zooms towards it from a fairground (where the Eastern Station is now).

• At Versailles and the Invalides, which was meant as Louis XIV's mausoleum, three straight streets converge: The next page explains. 

• A final expression of the Old Regime: The wide, straight street at a new toll gate that is called place du Trône*[Throne] to recall Louis XIV's royal entry, which took shape and began there. 

 * Now place de la Nation

For more information / zoom

It was built in 1787. The Revolution breaks out in 1789...

# # #

There are no exceptions. Even the church of Saint-Paul Saint-Louis, that glorifies but does is not symbolize the monarchy, is off-center — the street that leads to it curves:

# # #

Toward 1750, there's a change:

Straight streets lead to
a church (the Panthéon, 1758), 

and a theater (the Odéon, 1779).

Royalty weakens. 

*     *     *

Next,
Napoleon's tomb:

Straight streets lead to a sepulcher. Whose?

NAPOLEON'S TOMB: STRAIGHT STREETS LEAD TO A SEPULCHRE. WHOSE?

"NAPOLEON'S TOMB" WAS NEVER MEANT FOR HIM: LOUIS XIV PLANNED THE TOWERING MAUSOLEUM, WHICH IS NOW THE ARMY MUSEUM, FOR HIMSELF 

But that's not what's said.

      Louis XIV Visits the Invalides by Pierre-Denis Martin, 1706 / zoom 

# # #

When houses were low the dome overlooked the town and the complex still extends over a large part of the left bank:

         Place Louis XVI (Place de la Concorde) in 1829 by Giuseppe Canella, 1829 / zoom 

 The Invalides at Sunset © Frédéric Reglain / zoom

#  #  #

Louis called the whole "Les Invalides" because wounded veterans 

were cared for there (some still are). The name evokes a kindly king concerned for his troops:

Louis Visits the Veterans by Maurice Leloir, 1931

 

"In 1670, king Louis XIV Founded the Invalides 
to Lodge and Care for Veterans of his Wars." 

"From invalides to Invalides"

 

 

# # #

But how can succor to soldiers explain the remarkable site, when there are no allusions to them — and all elements lead to the dome?

• Two series of convergent lines highlight the whole. Those that emphasize the dome are built first:

-- Pascal Payen-Appenzeller, historian of Paris

Internet, no source given

An aerial view / zoom

• The only other example of converging lines is at Versailles:

 Versailles in 1668 by Pierre Patel / zoom

• The dome overlooks a void that takes at least 20 minutes to cross:

      Red arrows show walks, yellow ones sites /zoom.

Claude Abron

This photo stops at the portal, with the flag (look very carefully).

 

• In the whole complex, there is one image only. This one of Louis on horseback:  
  

• It leads to a courtyard so vast that one hardly sees the cannons or church entry:  

• Then one passes through a five-minute corridor of bare wall.

# # #

One finally reaches the dome, which hovers over a tomb...

Claude Abron

But it is Napoleon's.

# # #

Louis's final wars lasted a generation (from 1688 to 1713, with a five-year gap). He had to melt down his superb silverware. Nobles and soldiers were killed. Rural people died of cold and hunger.  

 

• This woman of the nobility, Marguerite de Choiseul (1647-1737), lost two of her sons in a single battle (the Battle of Turin) and a third through the war indirectly (all in 1706):

      Charging the French, Battle of Turin, 1706 / zoom

                 Château de Condé - Aymeri de Rochefort

   

• Taxes fell mainly on peasants — except for soldiers, who were often enrolled by force, or joined to escape starvation. "Famine, which desolated the countryside, was a ressource for war: those who had no bread became soldiers. Many lands lay fallow; but there was an army."  

-- Voltaire, The Century of Louis XIV, ed. 2015, p. 358.

 

• War made the once-in-a-century cold of 1709* still more terrible. 

*The wine in the king's glass froze.

Peasant Misery, "History of France" by François Guizot, 1875

Louis's wars made him so hated that a Parisian mausoleum was unthinkable, and his remains were taken to the royal necropolis at Saint-Denis (in 1715): "I saw small tents set up along the route to de Saint-Denis. There was drinking, singing, laughing." 

-- Voltaire, The Century of Louis XIV, ed 2015, note p. 474

Like the chateau of the Sleeping Beauty, the tomb remained empty for a hundred years.

(In fact longer, until 1836)

# # #

Every aspect of the colossal site concerns Louis XIV

and nothing refers to veterans.

So why are they emphasized and he left out? 

The direct reason is simple:

The Invalides, now the Army Museum,

extols French military glory 

and noticing the king's absence 

would underscore its human cost.

Harder to explain: 

Neither the historians I have read

nor the guides whose talks I have heard

mention Louis's absence.

Listeners say nothing.

*    *    *

Next,
Royal "places" multiply

ROYAL "PLACES" MULTIPLY

PARIS HAS FIVE:* THEY FOLLOW THE MODEL OF PLACE DES VOSGES, WITH AT THEIR CENTER AN EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF THE REIGNING KING** 

*Place des Vosges and place Dauphine (toward 1600), place des Victoires and place Vendôme (toward 1685), place de la Concorde (1755).

**The place Dauphine statue is on a bridge.

 

       Claude Abron

 At place des Victoires, the model is taken up exactly.

Diaporama, Louvre

At place Vendôme, the statue looks out over the buildings: no one is above the king.  

Place de Concorde is described on the next page.

In the provinces the Revolution cancels construction plans,

but some have been built already

Bordeaux 

Rennes

Reims: exceptionally, the king stands.

Abroad, 18th-century capitals take up the Parisian model

Nancy in 1751, when Lorraine is still independent

Internet, photographer not named

Copenhagen

          Palace square by Vasily Sadovnikov, toward 1847 / zoom

Saint-Petersburg

 Adopting places was due to France's influence —

"He spoke the refined French in which our grandfathers

 not only spoke but thought..."*

-- Page 1 of War and Peace

*It was the language conspirators used when they announced to Tsar Paul of Russia that he was an intolerable despot and was overthrown. Then they killed him.

-- The Romanovs, 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2016 (French ed. p.350).

*     *     * 

Next,

At the last royal place, change begins